Latest WTF News From the Supreme Court

Free speech by corporations = same thing as free speech by individuals?

Huh?

Many thoughtful Americans had just one reaction to this ruling:

Whatever Happened to the Real Serpico?

Find out here.

'Luck Trumps Death'

On Friday Wally and I watched The Hurt Locker, maybe the greatest movie to date about the War in Iraq and one of my Top 3 movies of 2009.

If you've seen the movie, check out these articles in today's NYT -- here and here - that explore the real life soldiers who work defusing homemade bombs that the military refers to as improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s. Thankfully, this front-page story of a solder who steps on an I.E.D. doesn't end in a bang.

I'm Not Mature

So just now I'm reading one of my favorite blogs, Andy Towle's Towleroad, and I see this ad interspersed in the copy:



Since when does "38" qualify as "mature"?

I'm the same age as Andy, 42, and although I'll gladly accept the term "middle age," I am most certainly not "mature."

In more ways than one.

That said, I hope Eric, 38, and Robert, 41, eventually find the maturity they require, even if that means dating a senior citizen in his late 40s.

I Would Like to Hear His Own Faux Conservative Outrage If This Involved Somebody Else

Shameful.

I'd Be Laughing If I Weren't Crying

Johnny Spreads His Seeds, Doesn't Feel So Pretty, Gets 'Hands Dirty' With Photo Op

Yesterday, two years late, John Edwards admitted to fathering a child out of wedlock. I heard it on the CBS radio network news on the drive home from work.

The reporter played a quote from his wife, who said she is supportive. The story ended by mentioning that John Edwards was doing relief work in Haiti, and that Mrs. Edwards found out about his whereabouts ... from the reporter. Classy.

Remember the hair incident with Edwards? It was a YouTube video of Edwards grooming, in a way-too-admiring and "primping" way, with "I Feel Pretty" as the background music. And remember the "he's building a 28,000-square-foot house he says is carbon-neutral while portraying himself as an environmentalist" stories?

I'd say that both stories were blown way out of proportion at the time, in a Howard "he really didn't scream" Dean kind of way. Media focused on the hair and the house obsessively. The world has bigger issues, which the media were all-too-happy to not mention thousands of times, unlike all the harping about primping and Edwards' version of Monticello/Mt. Vernon/The Hermitage.

But, looking back, I'd say both were "windows into the soul" moments. Both betrayed a narcissistic streak in Edwards that made him all-too-capable of cheating on his cancer-stricken wife, lying about his out-of-wedlock daughter and coming to the conclusion that no other American would make a better leader for the free world.

The Invincible Mr. Edwards would have made him a terrible president. Next.

Just Because

Marty Gracias

Martin Scorcese won a special award at last night's Golden Globes.

Here's the trailer for one of my "top three favorite" Scorcese films, "The King of Comedy."

Not Funny: Part I

NOT FUNNY: Part II

Not Funny: Part III

The mentally "questionable" contestants who will inevitably appear on tonight's premiere of American Idol, who are oblivious to their lack of talent, who will be edited to look as foolish as possible, and all in the name of ratings. I'm not talking about the obvious posers and fakers, those seeking 15 minutes, but those people who are sincere, hopeful, talentless and clueless -- presented, cruelly, for ridicule and ratings.

Facebook Status Updates I'd Like to See (But Probably Won't)

INSERT NAME HERE has explosive diarrhea.

INSERT NAME HERE is pleasuring himself.

INSERT NAME HERE is pleasuring herself.

INSERT NAME HERE is taking the Activia 14-day Challenge.

INSERT NAME HERE is using too many exclamation points!!!!

INSERT NAME HERE became a fan of rectal thermometers.

INSERT NAME HERE has her panties in a bunch.

INSERT NAME HERE has his panties in a bunch.

INSERT NAME HERE became a fan of Incomplete Sentences.

INSERT NAME HERE became a fan of Becoming a Fan of Things.

INSERT NAME HERE can't spell, punctuate or communicate.

They're Just Simple Cavemen!

From this morning's New York Times: Meet some "meat eaters," a subculture in New York of men (and women) who just want to be a simple cavemen.

The caveman lifestyle, in Mr. Durant’s interpretation, involves eating large quantities of meat and then fasting between meals to approximate the lean times that his distant ancestors faced between hunts. Vegetables and fruit are fine, but he avoids foods like bread that were unavailable before the invention of agriculture. Mr. Durant believes the human body evolved for a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and his goal is to wean himself off what he sees as many millenniums of bad habits.

These urban cavemen also choose exercise routines focused on sprinting and jumping, to replicate how a prehistoric person might have fled from a mastodon.

Keyrock (and his BMW) would be proud!



One more thing: Who doesn't miss the wonderful Phil Hartman?

Miscellaneous Facebook Ruminations

Are people with more than one ga-zillion Facebook friends really popular or really superficial?

I didn't like you in high school. Why would I want to be your Facebook friend now?

Farm World. I hope there's a level where at some point players, somehow, and in some way, are able to "get a life."

Meow!

Gotta run, cuz I got something cookin' in Cafe World (limited menu: toast and bacon) and I'm eligible for a Farkle bonus game in exactly 37 minutes.

Like Something from a Bad Gilligan's Island Episode?

I just remembered my blogger username and login after 10 months of amnesia (or was that apathy?). It was jarred back into my conscious mind just moments ago, when I heard Glenn Beck say something stupid.

But is anybody there? Does anybody care?

Failure is Not Just an Option; It Makes You Bonus Eligible

Over the weekend we learned that 400 AIG executives, who judging from the way their firm has been run could possibly be considered utter failures, will be getting $160 million in bonuses.

This follows the $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money they had received on four different occasions in light of its status as "too big to fail." Ben Bernanke said last night on 60 Minutes that nothing, nothing has pissed him off more.

Below is my post on AIG from last September in which I shared some information the CEO had shared with shareholders in the company's most recent annual report.

It still pisses me off, and read closely the item at the bottom that is labeled, of all things, "Integrity."

***

"Sincerely, Martin J. Sullivan"


In the last year AIG stock traded for as high as $70 a share. It's trading as of right now at $2.99 -- about the price for a gallon of milk.

Last week the stock was trading at a low of $1.25 a share, or about the price (sale price, I should say) of a can of Progresso Rich & Hearty Chicken Pot Pie soup.

So, in advance of this collapse, what were its investors told? I pulled the below from the AIG annual report, which you can read here. We'll just let these words speak for themselves, with no further comment.









One more thing: Forbes listed Sullivan's CEO compensation at $11 million. And when he left the firm earlier this summer, he was reportedly paid out a $47 million severance package. No doubt about it: One could buy quite a lot of Progresso Rich & Hearty Chicken Pot Pie soup (and deflated AIG stock) with that sort of coin.

Heckuva job, Marty.